Deliver customer service within specified requirements
Overview
This standard is part of the customer service competence area related to Customer Service Delivery. It covers delivering customer service within specified requirements. It includes customer service behaviours and processes that have most impact on the customer experience during Customer Service Delivery. Remember that customers include everyone to whom you provide products and services. They may be external to your organisation or they may be internal customers.
You organise the delivery and maintenance of excellent and reliable customer service. Your role may involve supervisory or management responsibilities and you take responsibility for the resources and systems you use. You are alert to customer reactions and know how to use them to improve the service that you give. You work with your organisation's service systems to meet or exceed customer expectations. You prepare for each transaction with customers, dealing with different types of customers in different circumstances, checking that you have met their expectations and completed records. You also provide customer service on customer premises, ensuring that your customer enjoys the customer service experience and has confidence that the work you have carried out has been completed successfully.
This standard is for customer service professionals who deliver customer service within specified requirements.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- maintain up to date knowledge of your organisation's services or products
- organise your work area to prepare to deal with your customers
- plan, prepare and organise to deliver services or products to different types of customers
- reorganise your work to respond to unexpected additional workloads
- maintain service delivery during busy and quiet periods
- maintain service delivery when systems, people or resources have let you down
- balance the demands of different customer needs
- improve the reliability of your service based on customer comments
- record and store customer service information following organisational guidelines
- select and retrieve customer service information in the required format
- locate information to respond to customer queries
- supply customer service information to colleagues
- make promises that balance the needs of your customers and your organisation
- inform your customers when you cannot keep your promises due to unforeseen circumstances
- adapt your service to meet changes in customers' needs or expectations
- inform customers when you refer them to a colleague or another organisation
- check that the service you have given meets your customers' needs and expectations
- prepare for visits to customer premises confirming when and why you will be there
- show official identification when visiting customer premises
- explain what you are going to do and approximately how long you expect the work to take
- listen to any concerns that your customer may have and reassure them
- inform customers of work progress and any potential delays
- inform customers about any variation to the work that could involve additional time or cost
- show respect to your customer's premises and possessions by treating them with care
- check that your customer is satisfied with the completed work
- identify how your customer service could be improved
- share information with colleagues to maintain and improve your service delivery
- follow the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies elevant to your role and the activities being carried out
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- your organisation's services or products and how to keep your knowledge up to date
- your organisation's processes and systems for delivering customer service
- your organisation's guidelines for organising your work area
- the types of unexpected additional workloads that may arise in your role and how to deal with them
- your organisation's definition of 'busy' and 'quiet' times and the activities that you should focus on during these periods
- your organisation's procedures for dealing with unexpected situations and your role within them
- the resource implications of staff sickness and holiday periods and your responsibilities at these times
- the importance of having easily accessible information for your customers and your organisation
- your organisation's procedures and systems for recording, storing, retrieving and supplying customer service information
- how to assess and prioritise customer requests to balance the demands from different customers
- the methods that can be used to monitor customer service delivery
- the colleagues and other organisations that are involved in providing service to your customers and when you may need to refer customers to them
- how to establish rapport with customers when visiting their premises
- the importance being sensitive to customer's feelings about their own premises and possessions
- the insurance implications of working on customer premises
- the organisational procedures to follow if you cause any accidental damage on customer premises
- how to identify useful customer feedback and how to decide which feedback should be acted on
- the methods and systems used to measure your organisation's effectiveness in delivering customer service
- how to communicate feedback from customers to others to improve customer service
- the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out